Social investments and poor families in India: the role of early childhood and employment programmes

This chapter by Sony Pellissery discusses social investments policies in India focusing on employment and early childhood programmes and the way they seek to meet the needs of poor families in India and provide them with resources that have an investment function. The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), since its beginning in the 1970s, focused on providing nutrition to the pregnant women and children up to the age of formal schooling. In contexts where poverty is pervasive, the chances of welfare loss through neglect as well as affordability are very high. The long-term impact of such neglect on human capital is immense. Similarly, since 1972 one of the states of India – Maharashtra – has had an employment guarantee scheme, which has been scaled up to national level since 2005, with an aim to provide employment opportunities in lean agricultural seasons as well as to build community assets through such labour. The chapter offers a detailed review of these two programmes and shows how a social investment approach was an essential component of development expenditure in the Global South. Key words: social investment, international social welfare, social protection, India